“A philosopher is a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that isn't there. A theologian is the man who finds it.”
More from H. L. Mencken on Philosophy
“An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it makes a better soup.”
“If we assume that man actually does resemble God, then we are forced into the impossible theory that God is a coward, an idiot and a bounder.”
“We are here and it is now. Further than that, all human knowledge is moonshine.”
“Theology is the effort to explain the unknowable in terms of the not worth knowing.”
“Morality is doing what is right regardless of what you are told. Obedience is doing what is told regardless of what is right.”
“Nevertheless, it is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man.”
“Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody may be looking.”
“Immortality is the condition of a dead man who doesn’t believe he is dead.”
“A cynic is a man who when he smells flowers looks around for a coffin.”
“What men value in the world is not rights but privileges.”
Others on Philosophy
Nietzsche
22 quotes“Glance into the world just as though time were gone: and everything crooked will become straight to you.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein
22 quotes“I don't know why we are here, but I'm pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves.”
Christopher Hitchens
22 quotes“To the dumb question "Why me?" the cosmos barely bothers to return the reply: why not?”
Carl Jung
21 quotes“I simply believe that some part of the human Self or Soul is not subject to the laws of space and time.”
Immanuel Kant
20 quotes“An action, to have moral worth, must be done from duty.”
Heraclitus
19 quotes“Nothing endures but change.”
C.S. Lewis
15 quotes“For the Present is the point at which time touches eternity.”
Fyodor Dostoevsky
14 quotes“I am alone, I thought, and they are everybody.”
Samuel Beckett
14 quotes“We always find something, eh Didi, to let us think we exist?”
Napoleon
14 quotes“Circumstances-what are circumstances? I make circumstances.”
T. S. Eliot
13 quotes“We have only to conquer Now, by suffering. This is the easier victory.Now is the triumph of the cross.”
Sigmund Freud
13 quotes“The interpretation of dreams is the royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious activities of the mind.”